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Non-profit association for the promotion of the cultural, natural, and landscape heritage represented by tree avenues

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Tree avenues

 

The French term ‘allée’ is used in many parts of Europe when referring to tree-lined ‘ways of passage’ in parks and gardens, in towns or in the country. In the context of landscapes, ‘avenue’ has the same meaning in English. ‘Avenues’ (or ‘tree avenues’) are thus ‘ways of passage’—paths, streets, and roads, but also canals—lined with rows of regularly spaced trees.

Avenues (in this sense) constitute an important cultural, natural, and landscape heritage in France, Europe, and beyond.

To know more about tree avenues, go to the "Quiz" and to the "Tree avenues and road safety" pages.

 

Our objectives

 

♦ To foster knowledge about  the cultural, natural, and landscape heritage that avenues represent ♦ Through information and education, to raise the awareness of the general public and professionals about the values of avenues ♦ To showcase the heritage of tree avenues and associated best practice ♦ To promote the economic activities and jobs avenues create ♦ To protect and renew existing avenues, and to develop new ones ♦ To support initiatives and protagonists helping to preserve tree avenues ♦

Who are we?

 

We are avenue lovers, determined to showcase this valuable heritage and convinced it is an asset for all of us. The board is made up of: Eric Mutschler, chair; Isabelle Kauffmann, secretary; Pierre Courbet, treasurer; Pierre Collin ; Qing Liu ; and Danièle Saget. Chantal Pradines, expert on avenues in France and in Europe, is executive director.

 

Our actions

ALLÉES-AVENUES /allées d'avenir/ is active at the local, national and international levels. Its actions are of an artistic, a technical and a scientific nature.

Three main actions :

Other important actionsderive from these main actiont :

They have already supported us in 2024:

  Logo cartouche gris NOREMAT Printexyd 230810 logo 2200x2200 greylogo Mugnier logo 2022 VIRY FAYAT GROUPE BLEU

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In all countries, "forgiving roadside" safety policies that associate road safety with the necessary absence of roadside obstacles make it difficult or impossible to keep avenue trees and plant new ones

The international ‘Essential Beauty of Trees’ symposium that took place at the Aude County Council headquarters in Carcassonne (France) from 19 to 20 November, 2023, made a point of presenting the scientific and ethical arguments necessary to be able to assert that the preservation or creation of tree avenues must not be restricted by regulations governing the proximity of trees to the edge of the road. All presentations are available here.

The symposium pointed out that the issues of today are not the same as those of the 1960s and 70s, a time that saw the development of the ‘forgiving roadside’ doctrine.

The symposium demonstrated that the level of road safety in different regions is unrelated to tree avenues and that, on the contrary, tree avenues enhance life, whether in terms of physical health (far beyond their positive effect on the care exercised at the wheel and on speed reduction, and hence on the causes and gravity of accidents), mental health or biodiversity. In particular, the beauty of tree avenues is essential: for the human environment, for our mental health, for social cohesion, and for a country’s or a region’s public image or identity.

The Carcassonne Declaration adopted at the conclusion of the symposium therefore states that:

  • tree avenues of any kind are cultural and natural heritage assets that enhance life;
  • public policies must be concrete reflections of this in order to ensure the preservation and replanting of tree avenues;
  • application of minimum spacing distances for the maintenance and replanting of tree avenues (distances from the roadside or from adjacent properties) must be abandoned.

Real the full text of the Declaration here.

At present, the Carcassonne Declaration is supported by ∗ participants at the symposium (21/11/2023)∗ Île et Vilaine (France) senator Daniel Salmon (17/11/2023)∗ France’s honorary senator Marie-Christine Blandin (17/11/2023)∗ Seine et Marne (France) MP Aude Luquet (15/11/2023) ∗ Aude County Council (France) chair Hélène Sandragné (21/11/2023)∗ Aude County Council vice-chair in charge of Roads and Mobilities Tamara Rivel (21/11/2023) ∗ Aude County Council vice-chair in charge of Ecological Transition Francis Morlon (21/11/2023) ∗ Augny (France) deputy mayor in charge of environmental matters Claude Bertsch (12/11/2023)∗ Newbury (UK) town councillor Steve Masters (18/11/2023) ∗ Sheffield (UK) honorary town councillor Alison Teal (20/11/2023) ∗ Bundestag MP from Lower Saxony (Germany) Knut Gerschau (28/06/2024) ∗ Bundestag MP from Lower Saxony, Chair of the parliamentary working group "Kulturgut Alleen" - "Tree avenues - A cultural asset" (Germany) Filiz Polat (10/07/2024)

The Carcassonne Declaration is available for signature throughout Europe and across the world. If you are interested or know of interested elected representatives, please do contact us.

Dimanche visite

Participation du public

Retrouvez ici les bilans qualitatifs de nos actions

You will find a general presentation of the symposium here

Click on vignette PPT 1cm to see the powerpoints of the presentations and on vignette film 1cm8490 to watch the videos. For the original French version of some presentations, switch to the French page.

Sunday 19.11.2023

14.00

Visit of tree avenues in Aude county vignette film 1cm8490

 

Monday 20.11.2023

9.15

Welcoming drinks and registration

9.45

 Extra short presentation of the participants

10.00

Opening vignette film 1cm8490

Éric MUTSCHLER - ALLÉES-AVENUES / allées d'avenir /, chair

Tamara RIVEL - Aude County Council; vice-chair Roads and Mobilitiess

Francis MORLON - Aude County Council; vice-chair, Ecological Transitione

 

Introduction

10.20

Environment and mobilities: new uses for trees. Re-examining the moral and pragmatic change of direction of the 60s and 70s with France’s President Pompidou vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490

Mathieu FLONNEAU - Assistant professor and researcher at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Director of the Economic and Social Administration Institute - Sorbonne Law School

 

The life of trees, the life of men

10.40

Introduction vignette film 1cm8490

Chantal PRADINES – ALLÉES-AVENUES /allées d’avenir/, executive director

10.45

Trees and us : intermingled lives vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490

Piotr TYSZKO - CHMIELOWIEC - Arboricultural expert, co-founder and head of the Tree institute (Instytut Drzewa), Wroclaw

11.05

Biological cultural heritage of avenues and roadside trees vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490

Anna WESTIN & Tommy LENNARTSSON – Researchers at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) - Institution for Town and Land - Center for Biodiversity

11.25

Audience contribution

11.35

Break

11.45

How trees condition our physical health vignette film 1cm8490

Hubert MANSION – Vice-president of University in Nature

12.05

Street Trees: Using systems thinking and photo-elicitation to explore the complex relationship between street trees and mental health vignette film 1cm8490

James FULLAM – Postdoctoral Researcher, European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter

12.25

FEEDBACK / Audience contribution 

The tres and landscape charter of Aude vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490

Sabine CAUSSINUS - Aude County Council, in charge of Trees and Landscape policy

12.50

Lunch

 

Tree avenues and their beauty

14.20

Introduction vignette film 1cm8490

Chantal PRADINES – ALLÉES-AVENUES /allées d’avenir/, executive director

14.25

Aestthetical aspects of the Swedish avenues through time vignette PPT 1cmvignette film 1cm8490

Patrik OLSSON - Lecturer at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) - Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management

14.45

Beautiful as well as useful - The history of tree avenues in Northern Germany vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490    

Jürgen PETERS, Prof. Dr.-Ing. – Professor Dr.-Ing., Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development.  Faculty of Landscape Management and Nature Conservation

15.05

Vegetational architectures. The tree-lined streets of Cagliari vignette film 1cm8490

Marco CADINU – Professor at University of Cagliari, Department of Civil, Environmental and Architecture Engineering

15.25

Tree avenues in Lithuania: the concern on beauty and identity of place vignette PPT 1cmvignette film 1cm8490

Giedré GODIENÉ – Landscape geographer, Assistant professor at Vilnius University. Faculty of Chemistry and Geosciences

15.45

FEEDBACK / Audience contribution 

Road design as a branch of garden design vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490

Éric ALONZO – Architect, Professor, Researcher at the Observatory of the Suburban World (AUSser mixed research unit), Eastern Paris School of Town and City Architecture, Gustave Eiffel University

16.10

Break

Taking into account the beauty of tree avenues

16.30

Introduction vignette PPT 1cmvignette film 1cm8490

Chantal PRADINES – ALLÉES-AVENUES /allées d’avenir/, executive director

16.35

What makes tree avenues attractive - Resonance and rhythm vignette PPT 1cmvignette film 1cm8490

Jean-Baptiste VIALE – Assistant professor, researcher, Clermont-Ferrand School of Architecture

16.50

The potential of aesthetic guidelines. Implementing the Council of Europe’s Landscape Convention in road development projects vignette PPT 1cmvignette film 1cm8490

Marius FISKEVOLD – Landscape architect, associate professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), School of Landscape Architecture

17.10

A sensitive description of the Aude county as a baseline for a new tourism strategy vignette PPT 1cmvignette film 1cm8490

Nadine DARSON BERETTA  - Managing director at Aude County Council Tourism Development Agency

17.25

Our favorite avenues – Interactiv identification by participants vignette PDF 1cm150vignette film 1cm8490

17.40

Interactive mapping of European tree avenues: at the service of tourism? vignette PPT 1cm  -The European cultural routes, between tourism and European cohesion vignette PPT 1cmvignette film 1cm8490

Chantal PRADINES – ALLÉES-AVENUES /allées d’avenir/, executive director

18.05

FEEDBACK / Audience contribution

Is there a touristic potential for tree avenues? vignette film 1cm8490

Élodie GRAY – Spécialiste en communication des organisations, chargée de mission patrimoine, communication et évènementiel
18.35 Presentation and reading of the Carcassonne Declaration

18.50

Apéritif - Concert - Dinner

 

Tuesday 21.11.2023

8.45

Welcoming drinks and registration

9.15

Introduction vignette PPT 1cmvignette film 1cm8490

Éric MUTSCHLER - ALLÉES-AVENUES / allées d'avenir /, chair

 

Risk, safety, behaviour

9.25

Risk, safety - Decision making vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490

David BALL – Professor of Risk Management, Middlesex University (London), Centre for Decision Analysis and Risk Management 

Les jeunes et la sécurité routière  vignette film 1cm8490

Jean-Pascal ASSAILLY - Researcher in psychology at Gustave Eiffel University, member of the Expert committee of the French National Road Safety Council

10.05

Tree avenues and road safety vignette PPT 1cmvignette film 1cm8490

Chantal PRADINES – ALLÉES-AVENUES /allées d’avenir/, executive director

10.20

Break

 

Beauty as a source of life
10.40

Introduction 

Éric MUTSCHLER - ALLÉES-AVENUES / allées d'avenir /, chair
10.45

The brain, trees and nature vignette film 1cm8490

Sylvie MONPOINT – Physician

... and the Artistic observatory vignette film 1cm8490

Chantal PRADINES – Déléguée générale ALLÉES-AVENUES /allées d’avenir/

11.00

Beauty and tree avenues : helping us to liv and to rebuild oneself and the city – Personal accounts vignette film 1cm8490

Annabel PITAQI – Journalist, former reporter, coordinator of the "Trees for Sarajevo" initiative vignette film 1cm8490

Oleksandra SLADKOVA - Sustainable Development Officer, Deputy Head of Department of Economic Development, Lviv City Council vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490

Yana BOBROVA – "Peli can live", executive director, Rotary Club Kyiv-Capital, Rotary Foundation Chair, Ukraine vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490

Sonja DÜMPELMANN, Dr.-Ing. - Professor and Chair of Environmental Humanities, Co-director, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich vignette film 1cm8490
11.45

Conclusion vignette film 1cm8490

Sylvie MONPOINT - Physician
11.50

FEEDBACK - Ethics and responsibility 

Une éthique du paysage ? vignette PPT 1cm vignette film 1cm8490

Vincent FURNELLE - Professor of Philosophy and Citizenship, Landscape philosohper, Haute Ecole Charlemagne, Gembloux

12.10

Lunch
 

Symbolic tree planting - Solidarity with Ukraine  vignette film 1cm8490

 

The "Carcassonne Declaration"

13.50

Introduction

Éric MUTSCHLER - ALLÉES-AVENUES / allées d'avenir /, chair

13.55

Common adoption of the "Carcassonne Declaration" and roadmap for a European cultural route on tree avenues

Eric MUTSCHLER - ALLÉES-AVENUES / allées d'avenir /, chair

Hélène SANDRAGNÉ- Aude County Council; chair

Tamara RIVEL - Aude County Council; vice-chair, Roads and Mobilities

Francis MORLON - Aude County Council; vice-chair, Ecological Transitione

Jean-Pierre THIBAULT - "Paysages de l'Après-Pétrole" circle, chair

and films from other european elected representatives

15.15

Conclusion

Hélène SANDRAGNÉ - Aude County Council, chair

Eric MUTSCHLER - ALLÉES-AVENUES / allées d'avenir /, chair

15.30

END

 

Browse through the "Guide book" to discover the speakers at the symposium "The essential beauty of tree avenues" and a short summary of their presentations

livret 2023 final page garde01

 

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